Quit Your Worrying! eBook

II. The second alternative is one of sullen submission.
If one hates to “row,” to be “nagged,”
he, she, submits, but with a bad grace, consumed constantly
with an inward rebellion, which destroys love, leads
to cowardly subterfuges, deceptions, and separations.

III. The third outcome is open rebellion, and
the results of this are too well known to need elucidation—­for
whatever they may be, they are disastrous to the peace,
happiness, and content of the family relationship.

Yet to show how hard it is to classify actual cases
in any formal way, let me here introduce what I wrote
long ago about a couple whom I have visited many times.
It is a husband and wife who are both geniuses—­far
above the ordinary in several lines. They have
money—­made by their own work—­the
wife’s as well as the husband’s, for she
is an architect and builder of fine homes. While
they have great affection one for another, there is
a constant undertone of worry in their lives.
Each is too critical of the other. They worry
about trifles. Each is losing daily the sweetness
of sympathetic and joyous comradeship because they
do not see eye to eye in all things. Where a
mutual criticism of one’s work is agreed upon,
and is mutually acceptable and unirritating, there
is no objection to it. Rather should it be a
source of congratulation that each is so desirous of
improving that criticism is welcomed. But, in
many cases, it is a positive and injurious irritant.
One meets with criticism, neither kind nor gentle,
out in the world. In the home, both man and woman
need tenderness, sympathy, comradeship—­and
if there be weaknesses or failures that are openly
or frankly confessed, there should be the added grace
and virtue of compassion without any air of pitying
condescension or superiority. By all means help
each other to mend, to improve, to reach after higher,
noble things, but don’t do it by the way of
personal criticism, advice, remonstrance, fault-finding,
worrying. If you do, you’ll do far more
harm than good in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred.
Every human being instinctively, in such position,
consciously or unconsciously, places himself in the
attitude of saying: “I am what I am!
Now recognize that, and leave me alone! My life
is mine to learn its lessons in my own way, just the
same as yours is to learn your lessons in your way.”
This worrying about, and of each other has proven
destructive of much domestic happiness, and has wrecked
many a marital barque, that started out with sails
set, fair wind, and excellent prospects.

Don’t worry about each other—­help
each other by the loving sympathy that soothes and
comforts. Example is worth a million times more
than precept and criticism, no matter how lovingly
and wisely applied, and few men and women are wise
enough to criticise and advise perpetually,
without giving the recipient the feeling that he is
being “nagged.”